Ifa exhibition in Hanoi treats trash as gold

The “PURE GOLD – Upcycled! Upgraded!” exhibition presents valuable products made from waste or cheap materials - Photos: Courtesy of the organizer

The show will explore the subject of rubbish and present approaches to using trash to create valuable products.

In the eyes of many designers, waste and cheap materials are pure gold as they can be creatively transformed into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

Global industrialization and great levels of consumption have made upcycling an urgent matter. The cornerstones of this project are ethics, responsibility, internationalization and co-creation.

The exhibition consists of two parts — the physical and material exhibition; and the virtual platform as a space for dialogue, discussion and the storage of knowledge.

The materials used in the exhibition can be easily found anywhere and are almost free, but they are often seen as trash of little value. The same is true for the techniques used to rework them, which are based on traditional methods and bear the stain of the backward.

The aim of “PURE GOLD – Upcycled! Upgraded!” is to disarm all the bad names that reuse has, and to achieve a new notion of raw materials and thus also a new appreciation of these products.

Working with seven curators from Europe, Latin America, North Africa and the Near East, East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, ifa has brought together 76 exhibits by 53 designers for the exhibition, of which a special selection will be shown at Heritage Space in Hanoi.

The exhibition is accompanied by a local workshop, which took place in early April at Heritage Space and attended by 10 local artists who shared their upcycling creations.

The Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations is Germany’s oldest intermediary organization for international cultural relations. Supporting artistic and cultural exchange worldwide, it is part of a global network and relies on sustainable and long-term partnerships.

ifa is supported by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, the state of Baden-Württemberg and its capital Stuttgart.

Below are some creations that will be on display at the exhibition: